Increased miniaturization of components, greater packaging density of integrated circuits (“ICs”), higher performance, and lower cost are ongoing goals of the computer industry. Semiconductor package structures continue to advance toward miniaturization, to increase the density of the components that are packaged therein while decreasing the sizes of the products that are made therefrom. This is in response to continually increasing demands on information and communication products for ever-reduced sizes, thicknesses, and costs, along with ever-increasing performance.
These increasing requirements for miniaturization are particularly noteworthy, for example, in portable information and communication devices such as cellular phones, hands-free cellular phone headsets, personal data assistants (“PDA's”), camcorders, notebook computers, and so forth. All of these devices continue to be made smaller and thinner to improve their portability. Accordingly, large-scale IC (“LSI”) packages that are incorporated into these devices are required to be made smaller and thinner. The package configurations that house and protect LSI require them to be made smaller and thinner as well.
As package configurations are made smaller and thinner, manufacturers of electrical/electronic devices such as integrated circuits (ICs), including system-on-a-chip (SoC), radio frequency (RF) circuit devices, printed circuit boards, and other electronic circuits, typically use automatic test equipment (ATE), testers, or similar other test systems to test the devices during the production process. The test systems are generally configured to apply a test signal to the device under test (DUT) and measure its response to determine a pass or fail status.
The test systems typically include a tester equipped with a probe card having one or more probe pins or needles. The probe pins are generally aligned with corresponding bond pads on a wafer to make contact and test a respective die or an IC, which is the DUT. Bond pads are contacted by probes to test the electrical properties and functioning of the semiconductor package to determine whether the finished semiconductor package performs per specification.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit system providing reliability. In view of the ever-increasing need to increase density of integrated circuits and particularly portable electronic products, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.